By means of Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio, Reporter
THE PHILIPPINES are open to acquiring the US Typhon medium-range missile system, a congressman said on Thursday, despite Chinese demands for the US to withdraw it from Manila after it was brought in for joint exercises earlier this year.
But there has not yet been an offer from the Philippines to buy the missile system and it is not on the Defense Department’s military modernization wish list, which will be financed from reserve funds in the 2025 national budget, Agusan del Norte Rep. Jose “Joboy” S Aquino II said this to the plenary of the House of Representatives.
“There is not,” he said in response to a question from party list representative Arlene D. Brosas about whether there was a “proposal.” “Well, maybe we hope to do that when the time comes,” he said in mixed English and Filipino.
The congressmen, who sponsored the agency’s budget for next year, said it would spend 25 billion euros of its unprogrammed appropriations on equipment purchases. The fund is in addition to the P50 billion the government has earmarked for military modernization next year.
The agency plans to use the standby funds to purchase more South Korean-made FA-50 light combat aircraft and upgrades. It could also buy frigates and upgrade the weapons systems of Philippine Navy ships, while boosting cybersecurity and electronic warfare, Mr. Aquino said. He didn’t say how much.
The US has no plan to withdraw the intermediate-range missile system and is testing the feasibility of using it in a regional conflict, sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
The Typhon system, which can be equipped with cruise missiles capable of striking Chinese targets, was deployed for joint exercises earlier this year, both countries said at the time, but has remained there.
The Southeast Asian archipelago, Taiwan’s neighbor to the south, is a key part of US strategy in Asia and would be a vital staging post for the military to help Taipei in the event of a Chinese attack.
China and Russia condemned the move – the system’s first deployment in the Indo-Pacific – and accused Washington of fueling an arms race.
The deployment, some details of which have not previously been reported, comes as China and US defense ally the Philippines clash over parts of the hotly contested South China Sea.
Recent months have brought a series of naval and air confrontations in the strategic waterway.
Philippine officials said Philippine and U.S. forces continued to train with the missile system in northern Luzon, which faces the South China Sea and is close to the Taiwan Strait, and that they were not aware of any immediate plans to return it even though the joint exercises have ended. this month.
Philippine military spokesman Col. Louie Dema-ala told Reuters on Wednesday that training was continuing and that it was up to the United States Army Pacific (USARPAC) to decide how long the missile system would remain in place.
The Philippine military had said the Typhon could remain beyond September and that soldiers trained with it last week, engaging in “discussions on the use of the system with a focus on integrating host nation support,” according to a USARPAC public affairs officer.
A senior Philippine government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, and another person familiar with the matter said the US and the Philippines were testing the feasibility of using the system there in the event of a conflict.
The government official said the Typhon – a modular system intended to be mobile and move as needed – was in the Philippines for a “test of the feasibility of deploying it in the country so that when the necessity arises, can be easily deployed. deployed here.”
Philippine President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
‘SLEEPLESS NIGHTS’
The US military flew the Typhon, which can launch missiles including SM-6 missiles and Tomahawks with a range of more than 1,600 kilometers (994 miles), to the Philippines in April, in what it called a “historic first” and an ‘important step in our future’. partnership with the Philippines.”
A note published at the time by the US Congressional Research Service, a policy institute of the US Congress, stated that it was “unknown whether this temporary deployment could ultimately become permanent.”
In July, military spokesman Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the Typhon missile launcher remained in the Philippines’ northern islands and said there was no specific date for when it would be “shipped out,” correcting an earlier statement that it would depart. in September.
A satellite image taken on Wednesday by Planet Labs, a commercial satellite company, and reviewed by Reuters showed the Typhon at Laoag International Airport, Ilocos Norte province.
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, who analyzed the images, said the system remained there.
The senior government official who spoke to Reuters said there were no immediate plans to withdraw the measure.
“If it is ever withdrawn, it is because the purpose has been achieved and it can be brought in (back) after all repairs would otherwise have been made,” the official said, adding that there was strategic value for the Philippines in maintaining the system to deter China.
“We want to give them sleepless nights.”
ANTI-SHIP WEAPONS
The US has amassed a variety of anti-ship weapons in Asia as Washington tries to quickly catch up in an Indo-Pacific missile race in which China has a big lead, Reuters reports.
Although the U.S. military has declined to say how many will be deployed in the Indo-Pacific region, more than 800 SM-6 missiles will be purchased over the next five years, according to government documents outlining the military purchases. Several thousand Tomahawks are already in US inventories, the documents showed.
China has denounced the Typhon deployment several times, including in May when Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said Manila and Washington had “brought enormous war risks to the region.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin cited the stakes in June when he announced his country would resume production of intermediate- and shorter-range nuclear missiles.
Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo assured his Chinese counterpart in July that the presence of the missile system in his country posed no threat to China and would not destabilize the region.
China has fully militarized at least three of the several islands it has built in the South China Sea, which it claims is largely complete, despite a 2016 arbitration award that backed the Philippines and armed them with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles, according to the USA .
China says its military facilities in the Spratly Islands are purely defensive and that it can do whatever it wants on its own territory. — of Reuters